Settlements in the East
Progress, as ever, was more slow in the East. It was in 1652 that the Dutch colonised the Cape of Good Hope. Amongst those Dutch colonists, and of the same reformed religion, were a number of the Huguenots from France. In 1661 the English colonised the Gold Coast, on the west of Africa, where the Portuguese had previously been in possession, and in the same year Portugal ceded to the English Crown what soon proved to be of the greatest importance to England in the East, the province of Bombay in India.
So saying, we have to understand that the hold of any of the western nations on India was almost confined to the coasts and to the ports. It did not go far into the country.
Bombay, in this sense of its coastal trading towns, was transferred by the Crown to the East India Company a year or two later, and some twenty-five years later again a disaster happened which made its possession of the first value to England, for in the attempt to increase their holding in Bengal the English were so heavily defeated that they were driven out of that province altogether. Bengal and Madras had been separated for purposes of the administration of their Governments some years before. But now the headquarters of the Company were established in Bombay, after the temporary loss of Bengal. It was in the first year of the new century that Calcutta was founded.
Thus went the story along the Indian coasts; but in India itself the Mahommedan power of the Moguls, which we have spoken of before, was now rising to its zenith. This was in the reign of the great Aurungzeb. And at the same time, in spite of this supremacy of the Moguls, arose into prominence two principal races of the Hindus, the Mahrattas and the Sikhs. The power of all three was to be greatly diminished in the years to come, but their rise is of particular interest because it is the division between Mahommedans and Hindus which is the main cause of unrest in India to-day, and also the reason why the native Indians are incapable of uniting so as to throw off a foreign yoke altogether. If that yoke were removed the fighting between these opposed elements would certainly be fatal to the well-being of the country. It is just about the date at which we have now arrived in this Greatest Story that we see the two elements most clearly in opposition.
Another event of much importance for England's future empire in India happened about the same date on India's north-west border: that state of Afghanistan, at length, after prolonged and doubtful fighting against Persia, finally gained its independence. Its importance is that it thus became what we call a "buffer state," preventing the direct collision of Russia with the Indian Empire. That threatened collision, and the value of the "buffer state," was not in evidence in the story at this time; but it was at this time that the foundation of its future value to England was laid.
